WVU project to study state of women in W.Va.

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. -- West Virginia University is teaming up with several groups to provide a better understanding of gender issues and bring more awareness to the status of women in West Virginia.The Morgantown school said its geology and geography department and the West Virginia GIS Technical Center have joined with the Institute for Women's Policy Research and the West Virginia Women's Commission for the West Virginia Gender Mapping Project.

The project is designed to inform policymakers, nonprofit organizations, researchers and citizens about gender and women's issues.The school said women who work full-time earn 69 percent of what full-time working men earn in West Virginia. That's the third-largest such wage gap in the U.S. Women are concentrated in occupations that tend to be lower paying than male-dominated occupations.